Skip to main content

For the Fun of It Again

Over five years ago Jami and I spent an afternoon decorating cupcakes to look like stilettos.  We managed to laugh throughout the whole time and it was and still remains a happy memory.  I wrote about it here and posted several photos of that event including the one below.


We embellished with some of the candies I had in the house.  My memory of that afternoon was sparked recently when I found both the Pirouline and Milano cookies together in a grocery store  They make the heel and sole of the shoes respectively.  Those cookies lead to an urge to try it again.

Today Susan is having a special birthday and what better than several pair of stilettos to celebrate.  The cookies were purchased, the sanding sugar and a bow candy mold were secured at a local cake and candy store so everything was in line to begin a morning of creating.  This is how the starting point looked.

On that multicolored plate are pink bows I made last night from pink chips 
The frosting had to be made, but the typical buttercream I have been making for years seems far too sweet.  I have wanted to make Swiss meringue buttercream for years, but it seemed daunting because egg whites have to be heated in a double boiler to 138F degrees.  What a ninny I´ve been.  It took less than 5 minutes to get the whites, sugar and salt to the proper temperature.  Then another five minutes  required to whip the whites to cool down before adding the butter gave me time to get the bowls to color the frosting in order.  There was one more 10 minutes of whipping after the butter was added.  Getting a picture of the frosting whipping away was not difficult.


Then the creative fun really started.  After about 2.5 hours there were 6 pairs of shoes ready to go.


One special stiletto was saved for the birthday girl.


Showing off my specially made pink bows
My need to be creative has been satisfied for another day and the whole time I could think about all the fun Jami and I had years ago.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Anatomy of a Sock

I've been knitting socks for a relatively short time.  One of the disconcerting things for me as I started following patterns for socks is the pattern designer assumes the knitter (in this case that would be me) knows all the parts of a sock.  So I thought I'd devote a post to improve my own knowledge about the anatomy of a sock and maybe some of you will learn something about the humble yet necessary sock as well. Here's the names of the parts of the foot as I know them. #49 ankle, #50 heel, #51, instep, #52 ball, #53 big toe, #54 toe, #55 little toe, #56 toenail. There are some parts more important for this discussion; first the heel of a foot is generally used to refer to the entire C-shape from the ankle to the instep.  Speaking of the instep, it refers to that curve near the bottom of the foot.  And what seems to be missing in the design above is the sole which generally refers to the bottom of the foot in total or plantar aspect in more technical terms...

Gosling's Meme and Knitting

What is a meme, you may first ask? Well Dr. Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist, came up with the idea in the late 1970's and stated something like: a meme is to a society what a gene is to a human. Both are an element or unit that can be replicated or passed from one individual to another. During the Internet age memes can be easily shared, replicated or otherwise passed on to another. Recent examples can be found on Gawker . Memes can include piano playing cats, a honey badger, the Call Me Maybe phenomenon and so on. The political campaign in the U.S. helped fuel memes using some of the most unusual statements like, "binders of women" and "you didn't build that." A few memes have staying power but most have a relatively short life span. Gosling's meme related to knitting has been around for some time; so when I again saw another post about him recently, it was time to figure out the origin. Ryan Gosling is a Canadian actor born in Onta...

Yarn Usage II: Crochet vs. Knit

All four swatches were made.  Each is 6.25" or 15.875 cm square; each prepared with the same sized yarn and needles or hook.  It took 25 stitches to get the appropriate width for the knit swatches and only 20 stitches for both of the crocheted squares.  That already says something, but I'll get to it in a minute.  (Don't know what I'm talking about here?  Check out this post first.) Unfortunately, you'll just have to trust me that four swatches were prepared and that they were all the same size.  In the excitement to get to measuring and weighing of the swatches, no photographic evidence was taken.  Luckily for me the results of this research doesn't have to be reviewed by a jury of my peer.  This blog post will be the sum and total of where this information is published. The remains of my four swatches What can be shared, however, are the balls of yarn rewound after the weighing and measuring was completed.  You will note the size ...